the timber has increased rapidly during the last few years, owing to the increasing scarcity of better timber, and about 75 per cent. of the best grades, 'Nos. 1 and 2 clear heart,' are exported to Europe for furniture and inside fittings. It is said to make very good flooring, and is now largely used for railway waggon box boards, the price in the U.S.A. being about 27 dollars per 1000 feet for firsts and seconds, as compared with 41 dollars for cypress. From 1900 to 1902 much of the wood was cut into 3-inch by 9-inch planks, to be used for cutting paving blocks in London, but in 1902 the market for this gave way, and the mills are now trying to introduce this wood as a paving-block material in the United States, where several large cities were in 1905 considering the use of this wood. The qualities necessary for a good paving block are durability, close grain, and the power of resisting abrasion. These qualities are found in red gum."
A very unfortunate experiment was made in Whitehall in the autumn of 1901, when the Corporation of Westminster accepted the tender of an American contractor to pave this street with "red gum." The surveyor seems to have supposed that red gum in America was the same as red gum in Australia, where the name is applied to several species of eucalyptus, which have a good reputation for street paving. Be this as it may, the paving wore out so soon that a large proportion was taken up again in July 1902, and a long and costly lawsuit followed. The contractor alleged (1) that the defects arose from the bad foundations of the road; (2) from excessive watering; (3) from stones having been forced into the pavement; and the case was not finally settled till October 1905.
Mr. Weale tells me that an inferior quality of this wood containing much sapwood is also known in the trade as "hazel pine." 'Satin walnut" is worth wholesale from 2s. to 2s. 3d. per cube foot, and "hazel pine" only rs. 3d. to 1s. 6d. In colour the former is a light fawn, often marked with a rich dark stripe; but is so deficient in strength and durability, and even when well seasoned is so liable to warp and twist, that it is only used for the cheapest classes of furniture.
Michaux says that though much inferior to black walnut and cherry, it was used a good deal in his time in America for picture-frames, bedsteads, coffins, and furniture. Red gum is now much used for veneer in the United States. It furnishes 17 per cent of all the veneer produced, the quantity in 1905 being over 187 million square feet.[1] I brought from St. Louis a slab of this timber cut from a tree of 30 inches diameter, of which the sapwood was about 6 inches thick and much paler in colour. Though cut 4 inches thick this plank cracked badly in drying; and it will evidently be a very difficult wood to dry without warping. It has a very close, fine grain, and takes a good polish.(H.J.E.)
- ↑ U.S. Dept. Agric. Forest Service Circular, No. 51 (1906).
